This is a rather big one, and I'm hoping I'll get a bit of discussion
going on this, as there's lots of angles to this, and I frankly am
curious to know what other people have come up with.

I have several rooms/zones in the house, which can be somewhat
independent from other areas in the house as far as heating goes, and
I'm wondering what my options are. I was thinking, for example, if I
knew I was going to be in the basement all day, I could turn down the
main furnace to say 68, and then use a supplementary heater to bring
just the basement up to 72.

I should add, that my basement tends to be colder than the rest of the
house, so to get my basement to 72, I would have to crank the regular
thermostat to 75 or so (which I would never do), so I would need a
supplementary heater in the basement one way or another.

What I'm looking for is a comfortable solution, that is somewhat
energy efficient. I have a high-efficiency gas furnace right now, but
I'm thinking adding electrical space heaters might actually reduce my
heating costs if I used them correctly.

Also, I don't want this to be a pain to manage. That is, I don't want
to have to walk around the whole house and adjust the vents/
temperature guages each time I switch rooms. So, what I need for that
would be some integrated smart controllers... (Am I going to far
here?). OK, while I'm dreaming, heating/cooling the zones based on
time of day, and days of the week would be nice...

I'm curious to hear what other people think / know about this

John